Bullied teen's mother speaks of long ordeal

The heartbroken mum of bullied schoolgirl Izzy Dix has given a hard-hitting account of the torment her daughter faced in the months leading to her death.

Gabbi Dix, 45, who is currently staying with her mother in St Albans, said she was speaking out in the hope that her daughter would be the "last person to be killed by bullies".

Ms Dix revealed that she has not returned to the Brixham home she shared with her only daughter since the night she found her hanged on September 17. It is believed 14-year-old Izzy took her own life after sustaining abuse at school and online.

Izzy was a gifted pupil who had ambitions to go to Oxford University, but her mother reported she could no longer cope with the bullying. Not long before her suicide, she wrote a heartbreaking poem about her ordeal.

Ms Dix reportedly revealed that Izzy had fled one lesson in tears the day before her death when the jibes got too much. She told how she has not been back to the family home in Devon since the night she ran from it, hysterical, after finding Izzy's body.

Every item of furniture has been given to the charity shop Izzy used to work in. Their other possessions are in storage except Izzy's diary, which was taken by the police as evidence.

Ms Dix recounted how Izzy would come home sobbing from school, called a boffin because of her grade-A learning and singled out because of her childhood in Darwin, Australia. But the torment continued online through social media and anonymous website Ask.fm.

Izzy's mother is reported as saying: "Some people will say, 'Oh that's just teenagers today,' but I don't accept that. It was more than we should expect any teenager to cope with, and in the end my daughter couldn't."

She is angry at the bullies and that teachers didn't do more to tackle them.

She told how she had read Izzy's poem I Give Up just weeks before she died.

"I knew she was distressed. She kept saying she couldn't take it any more. But not once did I consider that she would do what she did. It sounds so stupid now, but in my head I thought she wasn't quite at breaking point because her grades hadn't slipped at school. She was a star pupil until the day she died."

Izzy met with her father Eugene Conway not long before she died, although her mother insists this did not cause her to become depressed.